Summary: There are many ways to offer worship to God, but without this one form of worship, everything else we do is lip service.

OPEN: Reporters and city officials gathered at a Chicago railroad station one afternoon in 1953. The person they were meeting was the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner. A few minutes after the train came to a stop, a giant of a man - six feet four inches with bushy hair and a large mustache stepped from the train. Cameras flashed. City officials approached him with hands outstretched. Various people began telling him how honored they were to meet him.

The man politely thanked them and then, looking over their heads, asked if he could be excused for a moment. He quickly walked through the crowd until he reached the side of an elderly black woman who was struggling with two large suitcases. He picked up the bags and with a smile, escorted the woman to a bus. After helping her aboard, he wished her a safe journey. As he returned to the greeting party he apologized, "Sorry to have kept you waiting."

The man was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the famous missionary doctor who had spent his life helping the poor in Africa. In response to Schweitzer’s action, one member of the reception committee said with great admiration to the reporter standing next to him, "That’s the first time I ever saw a sermon walking."

APPLY: What is worship? Over the past few weeks we’ve covered several aspects of worship: Singing Praises, Taking of Communion, Studying Scripture…

AND all of these different methods of worship were expressions of love to God. But if one particular form of worship is missing, the form of worship we’re talking about today:

– Our worship will be incomplete

– Our expression of love for God will inadequate

In our text today, Jesus tells us it is not enough for us to say “Lord Lord” (in other words, attempt to offer worship). It takes more than expressions of worship to be pleasing to God.

We can do all the religious things we want & still offer up empty expressions of love to God if our worship doesn’t yield a specific result = a “sermon that walks” (repeat)

Worship that pleases God is a worship that makes a difference in how we live.

I. Without a “sermon that walks,” we have a dead religion.

There are many Christians that feel that worship is “showing up on Sunday Morning” and going through the motions.

1. Singing the songs

2. Taking Communion

3. Listening to the sermon

4. And so on, and so on

Now, these are all good things to do in worship. But if that’s ALL our Christianity turns out to be – we can become a lot like Jeremy Bentham, founder of London’s University College. Before he died in 1832, he left instructions that when he died, his body was to be preserved and placed on display in the meeting room of the board of governors for the college. So, when he died, his skeleton was reconstructed, given a wax head, dressed in his best suit, and placed in a glass case in the meeting room of the college’s board of governors.

For several years after his death, Jeremy Bentham faithfully attended every meeting of the board and was described in the minutes as “present, but not voting.”